Look and Say as a Technique in Teaching Reading

16 skills to combine both it would benefit your students enormously Scott and Ytreberg, 1990.

2.6 Look and Say as a Technique in Teaching Reading

Teachers often use ‘look and say’ as part of vocabulary teaching. So when children learn to say a new word they learn to read it Slattery and Willis: 67. Teacher can help children with whole word recognition by using printed material as much as she can in her classroom. Of course, the new words are learnt in context. This can also be done with phrases. Children use the same recognition skills when they are remembering a word or short phrase. There are a lot of word recognition games which can be done at this stage: matching words and pictures, recognizing the correct word, and reading words. Teachers could use these activities before children read a story or say a rhyme which includes these words. In matching words and pictures games for example, children match the written words to the picture on the board. Teacher asks students to look at the words on cards and say it loudly. Then students put them beside the matching picture on the blackboard. According to Slattery and Willis 2001: 75, the activities show how teacher can: 1 Focus on new words in context. It means we had better focus on new words that students don’t know before and related to the text that is discussed in context. 2 Teach sound and letterword recognition at the same time. So when students learn to say a new word they learn to read it. 17 3 Get children to match sound and written word. We can help students with whole word recognition by using printed material as much as we can in our classroom, e.g. word cards used for labeling and directions. Of course, the new words are learnt in context. 4 Repeat constantly to teach pronunciation. We could drill some words or phrases in order to get student’s good pronunciation. 5 Let children have fun while learning to read. Since they have short attention span, teacher should vary their techniques to break the boredom. They should give varied activities as handwriting, games, songs etc Slattery and Willis 2001: 75.

2.7 Action Research